Northrop Grumman Australia has won a $223 million
contract for the acquisition, construction and support
of a new satellite ground station for the Australian
Defence Force. The facility will be located at the
Kapooka army base just outside of Wagga Wagga, NSW. The
contract was announced by minister for defence industry
Christopher Pyne, who said it would provide a
communications boost to deployed forces as well as
economic benefits to the Riverina region of NSW.

Australian company Hansen and Yuncken is expected to
start construction later this year, subject to
Parliamentary Works Committee approval. Once
constructed, the facility will also be serviced by a
small number of maintenance personnel and operated
remotely.

The new ground station comes under Defence project
JP2008 Phase 5B2 and will work with the Wideband Global
SATCOM system, a US Defense constellation in which
Australia has a stake. The satellite ground station will
enable deployed forces across the Pacific and Indian
Ocean Region to connect to Defence’s strategic
information networks back in Australia.

The ADF, through contractor BAE Systems, has also been
constructing another WGS ground station in Western
Australia. However, that facility has been the subject
of a number of delays and was at one time on Defence's
“projects of concern” list.

Air Vice Marshall Andrew Dowse, head of ICT operations
for the ADF’s Chief Information Officer Group, recently
told a US military conference that the delays were
already causing constraints in its capacity to service
operations. And he warned that some technology such as
terminals could be obsolete by the time the Western
Australian facility is completed.

Meanwhile, the proposed ground station in NSW will also
assist with a range of operations in the region,
including border protection, humanitarian and disaster
relief missions. Pyne noted that a new network
management system to be deployed as part of the project
would enable reduced operational response times for
establishing and restoring satellite communications
services.

The project is expected to be completed in mid-2021.
Geoff Long, Commsday